


Shelter

by lillyluna



Series: Drop The World [1]
Category: Swimming RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-05
Updated: 2012-11-05
Packaged: 2017-11-18 01:14:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/555253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lillyluna/pseuds/lillyluna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Come in she said, I'll give ya shelter from the storm." After not living up to everyone's expectations in London, including his own, Ryan is a little down on himself especially when the media is all over him for all his hype and his lack of delivery. Michael is the only one who understands.</p><p>In which Ryan Lochte is the jerk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. There's a Wall Between Us

  
The incessant knocking at his hotel room door goes on for a minute before Michael gets out of bed, throws on a shirt and goes to see what’s going on. It’s 3 in the morning; he has a pretty good idea who’s behind the door.  
  
“He’s really drunk.” Ryan’s sister explains once he answers. “He wouldn’t come to my room or go to his room. He wanted to come here. I couldn’t stop him.”  
  
Ryan is sitting by the wall next to the door. He’s shirtless, his eyes are closed and his head hangs forward.  
  
“He’s been texting me all night,” Michael admits, “I figured he would show up.”  
  
“He’s in bad shape.” Megan says, not bothering to lower her voice, “He keeps talking about-”  
  
“Fuck up,” Ryan says from his spot on the ground “No jeah“ He looks up and Michael sees that his eyes are red.  
  
“Is he high?” Michael reaches down to stroke Ryan’s head.  
  
“No, he’s been fucking crying.” Megan sounds exasperated, “He’s in rough shape.”  
  
“Fucked up” Ryan mumbles it out.  
  
“Jesus Ry, you’re not a fuck up. We love you.” Megan tells him  
  
“What happened? I’ve never seen him like this.”  
  
“Yeah, no one has. He had interviews all day and paps have been following him around. Some asshole just kept asking how he felt about not having reached his full potential.”  
  
“Fucker.” Michael interrupts, he keeps rubbing the back of Ryan’s head  
  
“Then he went out and got shit faced so here we are. Not a best of Ryan Lochte moment… It’s his birthday.” She adds  
  
“I know.” Michael admits  
  
“I can’t carry him to his room.”  
  
“He can crash here, I’ll make sure he’s okay.” Michael offers, it’s easier than talking a drunk Ryan into going back to his room.  
  
“Maybe he’ll listen to you,” She kicks Ryan’s leg “Get up doofus. He’s taking you in.”  
  
“Told you.” Ryan mutters. He reaches a hand up for help and almost pulls her down as he gets up.  
  
“He’s in 418,” Megan takes Ryan’s hand and puts it on Michael’s shoulder, “His key card is in his wallet. I have his phone. Get some water in him.”  
  
“I got him, don’t worry.”  
  
Ryan totters in place and Michael wraps an arm around his waist to steady him.  
  
“You guys are assholes for breaking up. I want you to know that.” She tells them before walking away,  
  
“He broke up with me.” Michael calls out after her.  
  
“You let him.” She answers without looking back.  
  
*  
  
It takes a considerable amount of effort to keep Ryan standing and open the door at the same time. Ryan seems to have forgotten how to work his legs. He just hangs there.  
  
“S’like I’m nothing” Ryan slurs, “You didn’ even come to my birthd-“ He stumbles and Michael has a hard time keeping him up, Ryan’s dead weight in his arm.  
  
“I wasn’t invited to your birthday.”  
  
“You shoulda come.”  
  
“Come on dude, walk with me, let’s get you to bed.” He tries to nudge Ryan’s foot with his own but that gets them nowhere. Ryan seems more interested in talking than walking.  
  
“Let everyone down.” Ryan mumbles “Do nothing right.” He takes one unsteady step forward and almost looses his balance.  
  
“That’s not true Ry.” Michael tells him fighting to keep him standing.  
  
Ryan trips over his own feet and falls again, “Can’t swim, can’t walk, fuck!” he yells.  
  
“You can’t walk because you’re drunk and you swim just fine, get up.” Michael pulls him up but Ryan just falls against him.  
  
Ryan’s pressed against his chest; he smells like cologne and sweat and women’s perfume; there’s lipstick smeared on his cheek and what looks like leftover salt from tequila shots on his neck.  
  
There’s no way he’s getting Ryan all the way across the living room into the bedroom of his suite without at least one of them being injured. Michael surveys all the obstacles in their way and decides the couch is much closer. He steers Ryan towards it.  
  
“Failure.” Ryan says it softly as he falls back against the couch. He leans his head back on the cushion; his eyes are closed. “I failed Mike.”  
  
“You’re not a failure Ry, you need some water.”  
  
“Need you.” Ryan says.  
  
“You’re drunk Ry.”  
  
“Don’t care. You love me even if no medals-“  
  
“Ry, no one who loves you thinks you fucked up. You did great. Everyone’s proud. This isn’t like you Ry.”  
  
“No one gets how hard…. understands… me” Ryan opens his eyes and stares at him, “I need you.”  
  
Drunk or not, Michael can tell that Ryan’s hurting bad. He sits beside him and his hand finds its way to Ryan’s shoulder, then to the back of Ryan’s neck and then Ryan’s head is leaning against him. It’s all so stupid familiar and so, when Ryan looks up at him Michael forgets that they’re not together anymore and he kisses him.  
  
Ryan’s face is scorching and his lips are dry but he kisses back hard. He grabs the front of Michael’s t-shirt and balls it up in his fist. There are tears on his cheeks.  
  
Michael pulls away first and he presses his forehead against Ryan’s “Tell me what’s wrong Ry. I can help you.”  
  
Ryan lowers his glance “I fucked up.” He says, “I was suppose to do better, I let everyone down.”  
  
“No babe.” Michael kisses him again, “No one,” He pulls away and grabs Ryan’s hands, kissing the inside of his wrists, “thinks that. No one thinks you failed.”  
  
“I feel-“  
  
“I know babe, I get it.” Michael interrupts because he doesn’t need Ryan to tell him how he feels; he knows.  
  
“S’why I came here.” Ryan says softly, “I knew.”  
  
“I got you Ry.” He tangles his fingers in Ryan’s hair, holds him close, “You’re good.”  
  
“I love you.” Ryan says and it’s so easy to believe him, “I’m sorry I fucked up.”  
  
“You didn’t fuck up babe.” Michael tells him again, “I love you.”  
  
“I don’t know what went wrong-“ Ryan’s halfway sitting on his lap, “I worked s’hard. Fuck up.”  
  
“Don’t babe.” It’s too easy with Ryan and Michael knows he’s in trouble but he goes back to kissing Ryan’s neck because he wants Ryan to stop thinking about the lost races. Because he's been hurting too.


	2. I Took Too Much For Granted

  
  
They say old habits die-hard and it’s probably true because everything falls back into place. Michael’s hand fits on the same spot on Ryan’s chest, Ryan grabs Michael’s shirt in the same place to pull it over his head and as soon as it’s off Ryan’s lips kiss right where they always did, right below his jaw sweeping over his pulse point.  
  
Michael remembers how Ryan feels pressed against him, how Ryan’s heart always beats faster than his and how warm his skin is.  
  
Ryan moans when Michael kisses a spot near his jaw. He tips his head back and Michael finds himself sucking on skin that someone else’s mouth has already bruised. It snaps him back to reality; Ryan’s not his anymore.  
  
“You need water,” he pulls away and clears his throat, he stands up.  
  
“Come back.” Ryan’s head leans against the back of the couch, his eyes are half closed and his voice still sad, “Please.”  
  
It almost makes Michael forget about the hickeys or the lipstick because Ryan’s reaching out for him,  
  
“You need water.” Michael repeats.  
  
He walks to the bathroom, even though there’s a sink at the bar by the couch, and shuts the door behind him. He splashes water on his face first.  
  
Ryan had broken up with him over the phone at 6am on a Tuesday morning, four months before London.  
  
  
  
 _“People are starting to like know.” Ryan had said not even bothering with a hi, “Like… we need to-“  
  
“Since when do you care?” Michael wasn’t used to being the one not giving a fuck.  
  
“I just like heard stuff and-“  
  
“Let them say whatever, it doesn’t matter.”  
  
“No like I can’t.”  
  
“Can’t what Ry?”  
  
“This, like I can’t.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
“Are you breaking up with me?” Michael’s voice had stayed steady.  
  
“Um yeah.” Ryan’s voice was weird, “I can’t… Shit, like I’m sorry… I have to go… Pool.”  
  
And he’d hung up. _  
  
  
  
Michael splashes more cold water on his face.  
  
Ryan had never bothered to give him a better explanation for the early morning forty-five second end to their three-year relationship. They’d been a couple and then they hadn’t exactly like they’d been best friends one day and then a couple. Except that after the phone call they hadn’t gone back to being best friends; they’d gone back to not knowing each other.  
  
Michael had shoved all his hurt feelings in a tight space somewhere in his head because there were more important things to think about four months before the Olympics. Now that the Olympics are over though, those feelings had started to seep out, to ooze back into his mind and through his body and straight to his stomach and his heart. They ran through his veins like some kind of poison that hurt too much to want to keep going.  
  
Because they’d had plans for after London, plans that had been talked about through txt messages and late night phone calls and in bed after last minute flights across the country to visit each other. They were real plans about their real lives.  
  
They’d gone house hunting and talked about the future and while walking through a one-bedroom penthouse they’d even talked about kids.  
  
  
 _“Where are we going to put them though?”_  
  
“Put what?” Michael had been busy staring out at the city through the windows.  
  
“Our kids.”  
  
“Our what?”  
  
“Our kids, when we have them, this place will be too small.”   
  
  
They’d planned all those things and it had taken Ryan forty-five seconds to end it. Now that he lets himself think about it, Michael feels like the pain might cause his chest to rip open.  
  
It’s easier to play along with drunk Ryan than to feel how much reality hurts.  
  
Part of him wants to go back out there and take advantage of Ryan, forget that the only reason Ryan’s in his room is because he’s too drunk to remember they’ve broken up or too drunk to care. He wants to pretend his I love yous are real and not just spoken because of one too many birthday shots.  
  
He’s missed the fuck out of Ryan and holding him feels too good. Because really they both know this breakup was a bad idea.  
  
The bigger part of him knows it’s wrong, that in the morning Ryan will be sober and things between them will be awkward as fuck all over again. That Ryan probably won’t remember apologizing for everything and begging Michael to love him.  
  
If he goes along with it the pain of tomorrow morning will for sure kill him.  
  
*  
  
“Here.” He hands Ryan a plastic hotel cup filled with water and sits on the coffee table. He finds his shirt and puts it back on.  
  
“You don’t even want me.” Ryan sounds devastated, “I fucking… no one wants me.”  
  
“We’re not together Ry. We broke up. You broke up with me. Remember?” Michael wants to reach out and touch him but he doesn’t.  
  
“It was bullshit, you should-“  
  
“I don’t want to do this while you’re drunk dude. It’s not right.”  
  
“You said you loved me.”  
  
“I do Ryan, I fucking do.” Michael rubs a hand over his face.  
  
“So I love you too, done deal.” Ryan reaches for him.  
  
“You’re drunk and sad.” Michael pulls away, “It would make me this shittiest person to-“  
  
“I don’t care, I want this.” Ryan reaches for him again and grabs onto his sweatpants.  
  
“Dude I can’t.”  
  
“I want you.”  
  
“I don’t want you Ry,” Michael says and the words hurt, “Not like this.”  
  



	3. Everything's Been Left Unresolved

“I don’t want you.” Michael repeats and the words still sting.

It’s easy to tell that he’s hurt Ryan but Michael is unmoved.

He remembers the first week after Ryan had broken up with him and how it felt like he was dying sometimes. How he’d be in the shower or driving home or walking his dogs and all of a sudden it would hit and he’d forget how to breathe.

He remembers trying to call Ryan back to talk some sense into him, to get his story and to understand his freak out. He remembers Ryan’s voicemail message. He remembers Ryan never calling back.

He remembers Ryan ignoring him in the ready rooms, on flights, at press conferences and at practice. How everyone had noticed, how everyone had known and how everyone had given him these looks. Looks full of pity and apologies.

He remembers how two days before the phone call they had Googled their options for having kids.

Michael takes a step back and Ryan lets go of his sweatpants.

“Then why the fuck am I here?” Ryan looks down and rubs the back of his neck.

“Because you showed up.” Michael sits on the arm of the other couch

“You let me in!”

“It was easier than trying to get you to go back to your room Ry.”

“I love you.”

“You don’t dude.” Michael says it more to convince himself, “You don’t.”

“Stop saying that!” Ryan hits the cushion, “Stop telling me-“

“We broke up Ry!” Michael stands up again, “You broke up with me.”

“Didn’t mean it.” Ryan says, “I fucked up.”

Michael has waited for those words for months but everything about this is wrong. He suddenly wishes he hadn’t answered his door.

“Let’s just get you to bed.” He holds a hand out to help Ryan up, “You need to just stop talking.”

“I didn’t want to break up.” Ryan stares right at him, “I fu-“

“Not drunk dude.” Michael shakes his head, “Don’t, just… go to bed.” He grabs Ryan’s arm and pulls him up, “You can have my bed, walk bro.”

*

“Sit.” Michael points to the bed, “Take off your shoes.”

Ryan obeys. He bends down to unlace his shoes and almost falls over. Michael steadies him and pushes him back up.

“Stay.”

“Give me your wallet, I’ll put it on the desk.” Michael ignores him

“Stay.” Ryan tries again; he’s almost begging “Please, I lo-“

“Stop it Ry.” Michael almost begs back, “We’ll talk about it in the morning.”

“Where you going to sleep?” Ryan asks but his eyes are closed and his voice sounds a little more far away.

“I’m not tired.” Michael lies.

*

Michael wakes up on the couch to the sound of things falling over in the bedroom. He considers walking out and leaving Ryan alone to deal with his hangover. Leaving would mean avoiding Ryan and really given that they’re all flying out in a few days and that he’s retiring, he could probably go years without having to be in the same room as Ryan Lochte again.

“Motherfuck.” Ryan mumbles angrily from the bedroom, “Mike?!”

Leaving would be the easy way out and since Ryan’s already pussied out of their relationship Michael decides to grow some balls and confront him. He deserves more than forty-five seconds.

Ryan sits up in bed, cradling his head in his hands. The lamp, the alarm clock and the phone are on the floor.

“Morning dude.” Michael leans on the doorframe.

“Fuck.” Ryan takes his hands off his face, “how did I get here?”

“Your sister dropped you off you wouldn’t stay with her.”

“Shit, I’m sorry. I know we’re not… like that anymore… I just… fuck.”

“You were really drunk, it’s okay.”

“What did we?”

“Nothing, I just took your shoes off… You weren’t wearing a shirt. Your wallet’s over on the desk.”

“Um thanks.” Ryan says, “Fuck I feel like shit.”

“Um yeah.” Michael sits down on the bed, as far away from Ryan as possible, “You were a mess.”

“Rough fucking day.” Ryan mumbles, “Cullen kept making me do tequila shots and then there was champagne-“ Ryan starts to look green.

“Yo, don’t puke in my bed.”

“Fuck.” Ryan rubs his hands over his face and rakes his fingers through his hair, “I need a fucking birthday do-over, those paps were fucking-“

“You can’t let them like get to you, they’re no one.”

“They just like fucking… told me everything that was already in my head dude. Like all the shit I’m trying to drown-“ Ryan groans, “Shit sucks.”

“You were messed up Ry-“

“My best wasn’t good enough man.” Ryan says his voice quiet.

“No one thinks that Ry. You did-“ Michael starts to reach out to him but stops himself.

“Don’t touch me.” Ryan throws the blankets off and gets out of bed, “Why am I not wearing a shirt?” He looks suspicious.

“You weren’t wearing one when you got here dude.” Michael gets up too.

“Did we-“ Ryan asks again.

“You were fucked up last night Ry, You were begging me to-”

“Don’t-“ Ryan cuts him off, “Don’t talk about it.”

“Do you want breakfast? I can order some up or get coffee?”

“Um… No.” Ryan grabs his wallet from the desk and puts it in his pocket. “I have to-“

“Seriously?” Michael calls out, “You’re just fucking going to leave?”

“Yeah.” Ryan says, “I have fucking… more interviews and I’m hungover as fuck. Megan has my phone and I need to-“

“You’re not going to fucking say anything else?”

“No?”

“No.” Michael says, “No fucking way.”

“What d’you wanna hear?” Ryan leans against the wall, “Thanks for letting me crash? I’m sorry I was drunk? Megan should have known better.”

“You don’t fucking remember last night?” Michael backs up until he’s blocking the door.

“You said nothing fucking happened!” Ryan cries out.

“Because I fucking told you no!” Michael punches the door, “You were in here crying and talking about fucking up and-“

“I was drunk.”

“You said you loved me”

“I was drunk dude.” Ryan groans, “I told the doorman I loved him.”

“You were begging me to hold you dude.”

“Let it go dude.” Ryan drags the toe of his sneaker across the carpet, “I got nothing else to say…”

“Fuck you.” Michael walks out of the bedroom, “Just go.”

“I said I was sorry-“ Ryan walks out after him and heads to the door.

Michael watches him walk away, watches him trip on his untied laces and watches him open the door. He knows Ryan Lochte is about to walk out of his life.

“Don’t you like miss it Ry?” Michael calls out.

“No.” Ryan says but he stops walking away.

“That’s a fucking lie!” Michael yells, “There’s no way I’m the only one hurting here.”

“I’m over it.” Ryan doesn’t turn around to look at him.

“I kept telling last night… I kept saying-“ Michael’s mad and his words aren’t coming out right, “I told you no one thought you were a fuck up. That’s a lie, you-“

“Sorry you feel that way bro.” Ryan says in the same quiet voice but he walks to the elevator without looking back.

**Author's Note:**

> Ficathon prompt by sandy_dog over on livejournal.


End file.
